What was going on when I was born?

The bitter contest for control of the GAF Corporation came to a formal end yesterday with the election of a new board nominated by dissident shareholders. With a cool gesture of good will toward Samuel J. Heyman, leader of the dissident group and new chairman, Jesse Werner relinquished his position as chairman, which he had held for 18 years. The Heyman Committee for New Management inherits a struggling company consisting of two divisions, specialty chemicals and building products, plus WNCN, a small FM classical music station in New York. In a report yesterday, Mr. Werner said that the chemical business was doing well and that GAF had been offered $7 million for WNCN. GAF paid $2 million for it in 1976. ''The only business not profitable is our building products business,'' he said.

Retail sales climbed by a strong 1.9 percent last month, the Commerce Department reported today, rising to a seasonally adjusted $102.5 billion, from $100.6 billion in October. The total included record dollar sales of automobiles and gains for stores selling clothing, building supplies and food, as well as for drug and department stores and restaurants. The major categories showing declines were gasoline service stations and stores for furniture and home furnishings. 'Merriest' Season in Years Commerce Secretary Malcolm Baldrige said merchants are having their ''merriest holiday selling season in many years'' because higher income and growing confidence in the economy are bolstering consumer buying.

An article in Business Day yesterday about the Xerox Corporation misstated the basis for a contingency payment that Xerox will make in acquiring Van Kampen Merritt Inc. It is the earnings of Van Kampen Merritt.

In an effort to meet objections from the Dr Pepper Company, an investor group headed by Castle & Cooke Inc., the big West Coast food producer, last night raised its offer for Dr Pepper by $21 million, to $581 million in cash. The offer was hand delivered last night to Dr Pepper directors at their homes. The investor group, known as the DPCC Acquisition Corporation, had originally offered to pay $24 a share, or $560 million, for Dr. Pepper. but the company turned the offer down last Saturday, accepting a previous one of $22 a share, or $512.5 million, from Forstmann Little & Company, a New York investment house.

President Raul Alfonsin announced tonight that he would prosecute Argentina's former military rulers for spreading ''terror, pain and death throughout Argentine society.'' In a national television speech, Mr. Alfonsin, who was inaugurated Saturday, issued a decree to prosecute the nine generals and admirals who at different times made up the three-man junta that ruled between 1976 and 1982. They will be tried in military courts. More than 6,000 Argentines disappeared during a military campaign against leftist subversion in those years and are presumed to be dead. Hundreds more were killed outright and thousands were tortured.

A coalition of rightist parties pushed through a constitutional measure tonight that cuts by about half the amount of land available for future land redistribution in El Salvador. The measure, approved by 34 votes in the 60-member Constituent Assembly, caused an outcry among its critics. ''I congratulate it for succeeding in definitely ending agrarian reform,'' the leader of the moderate Christian Democrats, Julio Rey Prendes, said of the far-right National Republican Alliance, which fought for the measure.

News Analysis The message has come from the city school system and it is a blunt one: Send money. At least $80 million. That is what the Board of Education needs to add to its $3.5 billion budget to finish out the school year in good fiscal health, Schools Chancellor Anthony J. Alvarado told some unhappy budget officials at City Hall recently. Appeals from the school system to the city for more money have long been the norm. But this request has generated more than the usual amount of grumbling. For one thing, $80 million is the largest midyear budget request from the Board of Education since the $92 million asked for in 1979.

''If the offenders can be clearly identified, there will be ways of getting at them.'' - Secretary of State George P. Shultz, speaking of terrorist bombers. (A9:1.)

Softsel, the industry leader in what has been one of the fastest-growing segments of the personal and home computer business, was virtually unheard of four years ago. Softsel and its competitors distribute the software, or programs, that enable the computers to write letters, track inventories, play games and perform the other functions that make the machines useful and popular. And though still obscured by the glamour surrounding personal computers, software sales are expected to rise at an annual rate of 41 percent over the next five years, compared with 30 percent for the computers themselves, according to Future Computing Inc., a Richardson, Tex., consulting company that keeps track of such things. Annual software sales are expected to approach $12 billion in 1988, according to Future Computing, up from $2.1 billion this year.

A single 600-foot block in the heart of Manhattan - a block of sidewalk barkers and welcoming smiles, neon signs and showcase windows - has become the central transfer point for much of the jewelry stolen each year in the New York metropolitan area. The block is 47th Street between Fifth Avenue and the Avenue of the Americas. It is the cramped, fast-paced center of a multibillion dollar international business in diamonds and other precious stones and metals. But there is a dark side to this glittering block. Tens of millions of dollars in jewelry stolen each year from homes in the city, according to law-enforcement authorities, is fenced in the stores and booths along 47th Street - bought by retailers who know, from what they pay the sellers and what they can charge the public, that the items are ''hot.''

Two United States planes reportedly on a reconnaissance mission were shot at today by Syrian surface-to-air missiles. American warships then opened fire on Syrian antiaircraft batteries in the mountains east of Beirut. The planes were not hit. The naval bombardment was the second in two weeks against Syrian antiaircraft batteries in Lebanon in response to firing on American aircraft. On Dec. 4, 28 American fighter bombers blasted Syrian antiaircraft positions, and two American planes were shot down. American warships were also in action that day, silencing Druse gun batteries around Beirut after they killed 8 American marines.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1983 The Economy Retail sales climbed by a strong 1.9 percent in November, to a seasonally adjusted $102.5 billion, the Commerce Department reported. It said the total included record dollar sales of autos and gains for stores selling clothing, building supplies and food. Drug and department stores also did well, as did restaurants. Experts cited growing consumer confidence in the economy. (Page D1.)